Let Us Be

What women need.

You decide our lives, you decide our deaths; you decide our honour and our shame

You decide our beginning, you decide our end; will you ever make amends?

You tell us how short our frocks should be; you show us how long our veil ought to be

You ask us to walk with our heads down; you chide us when we try raising an alarm  

You put a check when we want to dance a little; you’re always wary of us flying high

We wriggle and struggle to push the boundaries by a little

But you return to seek revenge with a vigor unparalleled

You tell us if “we can” or “we-can’t” besides deciding if we “should” or “should not”

You elevate us to the stature of goddesses or reduce us to impure beings un-derserving of the sacred spaces

Now try being the wind beneath our wings, now give us some space to breathe

We will turn this world into a beautiful reality, together we can cherish its novelties

There’s hope this can come true, where we can be birds in the sky so blue.

— Published on May 27, 2020